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Critique the Community: Submit Your Product Images Now

To celebrate the release of our newest product photography tutorial, the next episode of Critique the Community will be focused on product images. After having spent weeks with Brian Rodgers Jr. and watching him work, Lee and Patrick are ready to see how your images stand up against the highest rated product photographers on Fstoppers. From the submissions, we will choose one lucky person to win a free Fstoppers tutorial. We will be accepting submissions between now and Friday, February 2nd, at midnight and will select a total of 20 images for the video. Make sure you follow the submission guidelines below to be eligible to participate.

How to Shoot Night Photography

If you haven't tried out night photography before, you sure are missing out on some fun and creative opportunities. One thing for sure, it's quite different than shooting during the day, so I understand why some of you may be hesitant to venture out at night with your camera.

Critique the Community Episode 24: Fine Art Photography

This week's episode of Critique the Community brings a lively discussion between Lee Morris and Mike Kelley on what makes a quality fine art photograph. We received hundreds of image submissions from the Fstoppers community and Lee and Mike hold nothing back with their critique. In the midst of everything, we also play a prank on Mike.

Frequency Separation Made Easy With ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2018

Frequency separation has long been a popular technique for skin retouching. However, for a lot of photographers new to photo editing, beauty retouching, and ACDSee, it can seem like a very difficult process. Within ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate 2018, the process has been made easier with the addition of an automated frequency separation tool.

How a Bad Client Consultation Changed My Portrait Photography Business

Are you doing your best in client consultations? I wasn't, and my work was suffering for it. A thorough client consultation is a free, simple tool that can make a huge impact on your portrait photography business, both in terms of shoot quality, and in getting happy clients to come back for more. The best part is, it’s not difficult at all. You just have to do it.

Testing Out Photoshop CC’s New Select Subject Tool

This week, Adobe released an update to Photoshop CC that features a new selection tool capable of automatically selecting the prominent subjects in an image with only one click. This video does an excellent job of revealing exactly what you get with this new technology and how to use it to its full potential.

To Be a Better Photographer, It's Sometimes Best to Not Take a Picture

When you drag all your photography gear to a location, do you ever feel a certain pressure to come away with a shot? Certainly, we all want the time and effort we put into each shoot to pay off, but sometimes, it's detrimental to try to force a shot that isn't there.

Three Ways to Nail Focus While Shooting at f/1.4

Shooting portraits with beautiful, creamy backgrounds is a very popular look right now. Using the right gear, you can achieve this look in camera, but one common question that arises from shooting wide open is how do you get perfect focus?

Creating a Product Photography Shot Almost Entirely in Camera

Product photography is all about the details, where every ray of light, every angle, and every placement can make or break a shot. This great video will walk you through setting up and shooting a watch image while working to minimize the amount of time spent in post-processing.

Godox AD600 Pro Flash: Worth the Upgrade?

The Godox AD600 Pro Strobe was recently announced to the public. Having myself recently shifted from a fantastic (but also pricey) pair of Profoto B1s to jump into the Godox (Flashpoint in the U.S.) system, I took notice.

Five Tips for Using the Clone Stamp Tool in Photoshop

The Clone Stamp Tool is probably my favorite thing in Photoshop, as it's a simple, straightforward, versatile, and most importantly, powerful tool for editing a wide range of images. This helpful video will give you five tips for getting the best results out of the Clone Stamp Tool.

The Ultimate Gimbal Review Part 2

If you're in the market for a new gimbal you're probably overwhelmed with options. In today's video, I will compare the five most popular gimbals and let you know which one you should buy.

Three Important Steps to Organizing Your Photos for a Client

The chaotic nature in which photographers send their final galleries to a client is something I've often noticed. Galleries will jump around between scenes and cameras without any flow or organization. I am a wedding photographer, and maybe this means more to me than it would to other genres of photography. However, taking a few minutes to put everything in an order that flows well for your clients can create a tremendous difference in how your brand is perceived and in how you tell the story of their photoshoot.

How I Burned Out Doing Cheap Photography Workshops

There is a reason people say that your price range usually determines what kind of clients you attract, and this also often holds true for photography workshops, not just for weddings or photoshoots. I found this out in the hard way; I burned out, made hardly any profit, sometimes even loss. So, how did I end up in this situation and why did I keep going instead of learning from my mistakes early on?

Use Your Lightroom Presets in Photoshop With Preset Brewery

Let’s face it, many photographers these days utilize Lightroom presets to either expedite their workflow or to help spur creativity when they are in a rut. But have you ever wanted to use a Lightroom preset as a layer in Photoshop, or potentially layer two presets together? Well look no further, Preset Brewery by Adam Bardon makes life easy with a click of a button.

Thinking of Switching to Mirrorless? You Need to Watch This

There are a lot of people switching from DSLR to mirrorless these days. But while Sony has the full frame side of things pretty much locked down, a ton of people, including Fujifilm X Photographer and Fstoppers tutorial maker, Elia Locardi, are recognizing the great, more compact, systems that Fuji is producing. In this video, Photographer and YouTuber Mark Duffy explains why he moved from Canon to Fuji.

Is This the Most Versatile LED Light on the Market?

Recently, Spiffy Gear had released a very unique-looking light named Spekular. What caught my attention was its ability to combine, shape, and separate one single "light" in so many different ways. From my perspective, having the variety of options for on-the-go shooting held value. I ended up taking the LED light kit for a spin. There were some aspects I liked and some that could use some improvements. Let's dive in.

'Galaxies Vol. II' Captures Deep-Sky Astro Time-Lapses

Adrien Mauduit has released the second piece in his “Galaxies” series. Volume II features time-lapses taken against winter skies, a deviation from his first “Galaxies” film which captures our galaxy and the surrounding stars during the summer nights.

Using Photoshop to Create Sharper Images

Post-process sharpening is an often overlooked tool that can significantly improve an image. There are several techniques available to sharpen photos. Usually, an editing software will have a simple slider delegated to adjust a photo’s sharpness that may include a few options with it as well. Adobe Photoshop, however, can take the ability to control sharpening much farther.

How to Color Grade Your Footage With Adobe Premiere's Lumetri Tools

Most tutorials available for free on YouTube explaining how to color grade your footage are just ways to sell LUTs, presets, or to show you how to add teal and orange to your clips. Nate from Tutvid decided to make a more comprehensive video to help you get started with Adobe Premiere Lumetri tool so you can grade any of your videos the way you want.

Swallow Your Pride and Get on Your Knees

Angle is everything. It's often the difference between a mediocre shot and a legendary one. Ansel Adams once said, “A good photograph is knowing where to stand.” It turns out he was actually pretty off because it's actually all about where you kneel, lay, and hang.

Learn the Entire Process of a Stylized Photoshoot From Start to Finish

I'm a big fan of seeing photoshoots from conceptualization all the way to finished images, as I think that while it's of course beneficial to learn individual techniques and ideas, it's also important to see how all those really work together to produce the final product. This great set of videos will show you that entire process.

Using Flash Duration to Freeze Motion

Flash duration is one of those terms you hear in the world of flash photography but may not know exactly what it is, or why it matters. It’s really quite simple, and pretty much exactly what it sounds like. The measurement of time from when the flash begins to fire until it’s completely off is what’s known as flash duration. Like a light bulb filament slowly burning off when it’s turned off, a flash tube does the same thing, but much quicker.

Why the Telephoto Is My Go-To Landscape Photography Lens

Wider was always better when I first began photographing landscapes. As an amateur photographer and outdoor enthusiast, all I wanted to do was cut down on weight in my pack when heading off on long, adventure-filled days in the mountains. But slowly my focus shifted from going out to hike, while maybe capturing beautiful moments, to fully focusing my time and attention on capturing beautiful landscapes. Hiking became the mode of transportation while photography became the reason for heading to the mountains.

How to Film Yourself Peter McKinnon Style

Under mounting pressure from my peers and the industry at large, I finally tried getting into video creation. While filming myself in my first video ever (an unboxing), I ran into a whole slew of issues. How should I mount my camera? Where do I place it? Why does this look so gosh diddly darn boring? To say I struggled would be an understatement. To say I gave up would be spot on. But maybe it was for the best, because two days later, Toronto-based Photographer and Cinematographer Peter McKinnon came out with all the answers to my problems — well, my technical and inspirational ones. The rest I'm still working on.

Three Ingredients for Great Landscape Photos

I realized a while back that I watch a lot of YouTube videos. Sure, I'll kill some time while laughing at something completely idiotic, but most of my time on the website is looking for my next lesson in photography. For me, photography is something that I don't think I will ever stop learning, and it's one of the things I like most about it. I love the fact that there is always something else for me to learn, something new for me to try, and countless of other photographers from whom I can learn.

The Easiest Way to Edit in Lightroom From Multiple Computers

One of the most common complaints among Adobe Lightroom’s users is the issue of it restricting your catalog access to a single computer. Photographers who travel often or studios with multiple editors have continually looked for options that would allow them to sync their edits across several computers conveniently. If you search the web, you can find a few workarounds for this problem, but none that are as simple most photographers would like. However, the creation of the new Lightroom CC has opened up several new possibilities, including a simple option to easily edit your images from multiple computers.

Tips on Capturing Successful Light Passes in Automotive Light Painting

There are several different ways to light your subject in photography. While light painting isn't a new or exclusive technique within automotive photography, it is a fundamental technique car photographers should understand how to use. If you are new to light painting or never used this technique to photograph a vehicle, you may have some questions on where to begin.

Set the Mood of Your Images Easily Using Capture One's Color Balance Tool

When Capture One 9 was released about two years ago, one of the most noticeable features was the color balance tool. It makes color grading very visual and effortless, even if you don’t have a solid knowledge of color theory. Along with tethered capture mode, the layers introduced last December, and the default color profiles, it has become one of the primary reasons why Phase One’s software is the standard in the commercial, fashion, and beauty photography industry. In this six-minute long video, Zoë Noble will show you how it can set the mood of your images and help speed up your editing process.

Five Methods to Make Color Pop Using Photoshop

Most of us love photos with vibrant colors that seem to pop off the screen, but it's a subtle art creating such a look without making the final image gaudy and oversaturated. This helpful video will show you several methods for making colors burst using Photoshop.

Seven Tips and Ideas for Better Winter Landscape Photography

It may be absolutely freezing where you are right now, but that doesn't mean it's not a great time get out and shoot some photos. This great video will give you seven helpful tips and ideas for better winter landscape images.

How to Add Splashes to Your Product Photography With Exposure Blending

Depending on your project or assignment, commercial photography can allow for some creativity to be added to the photo. Creating splashing in the background or even having the splashes hit the product or subject can be one way to add some interesting factors to the shot. How would you set up the shot?

Six Helpful Tips for Better Landscape Photo Composition

Talking about good composition is one of the subtler aspects of image-making, but of course, a composition can make or break a photo. This helpful video will give you six tips for composing better landscape images.

Ten New Year's Resolutions Worth Making as a Photographer

Clichéd new year resolutions are as much of a tradition of the holidays as building snowmen and eggnog. Why not change things up a bit this year and set yourself a resolution which is related to helping you grow as a photographer. Here are 10 promises worth trying to keep in 2018.

A Three-Minute Guide to Food Photography

Food photography is ever present in our society. From billboard advertising to culinary magazines and, let's not forget, Instagram. Of course, the photography found in these mediums varies in style and quality depending on its intended audience but, in general, the goal is to make food look pleasing to the viewer. In this concise clip, LensProToGo gives us a long list of actionable tips to improve our food photography.

Building a Stock Catalog of Lifestyle Images Through Assignment Work and Adobe Stock

Building a stock photography portfolio and generating passive income can be one of the easiest ways a photographer can make money. However, creating a sizable portfolio that generates a worthwhile income month after month doesn't just happen overnight. Chances are you have already been shooting images suitable for stock without realizing it. With just a little planning and adjustment to how you see and approach assignments, you can turn your existing and future work into a growing stock catalog. Additionally, with stock sites like Adobe Stock built right into your Creative Cloud, submitting, tracking, and learning what sells is a relatively easy task.

How to Control Your Portrait Backgrounds With a 70-200mm Telephoto Lens

No matter if you photograph headshots, weddings, portraits, or sports, one of the most important skills you can have as a photographer is picking out interesting yet non-distracting backgrounds. Many photographers prefer shooting with fast prime lenses but in today's short photography tutorial, I'm going to show you why I prefer the power and versatility of a telephoto lens.

Photoshop’s Select and Mask Sliders Explained

Creating a precise selection in Photoshop is one of the essential tools that a photographer should understand. In this PiXimperfect tutorial, Unmesh Dinda takes us through the best way to select an object by explaining how each of the adjustment sliders affects a selection.

Five Tips for Better and More Creative Edits in Lightroom

People often think of Lightroom as the place where cataloging and basic editing takes place with Photoshop doing the heavy lifting. And while it's true that Photoshop is the more powerful editor, you can accomplish quite a bit using just Lightroom. This helpful video will show you five ways to edit more creatively using Lightroom.

How to Add a Soft, Warm Glow to Images Using Photoshop

A very popular and fun look for portraits and candid shots is a warm glow that seems to emanate from a soft, out-of-frame light source. This fun and easy tutorial will show you how to add that same glow to your images using Photoshop.

An Easy Fix for Nik Collection’s Recent Crash Issues

If you are a user of one of the popular Nik Collection photo editing plugins, you have probably experienced errors in using the software recently. After Photoshop’s latest update, several users have reported that using the plugins will now force Photoshop to close when the plugin attempts to save its changes. This not only limits your use of Nik’s software, but it also will also cause you to lose all unsaved changes to your image prior to using the plugin. Luckily, there is a very simple workaround.

Traveling and Your Photography: Make the Most Out of It

So you've got some upcoming travel plans, maybe to a new destination or maybe to a place you like to visit over and over again. A favorite city maybe, a real home away from home. Obviously you take your camera gear with you with the goal of making the most of your trip. Do you plan ahead of time or will you be flying by the seat of your pants? We're all different, some people want a detailed itinerary while others want to enjoy some spontaneity, but we all want to come home with some great images. Having a plan (even a rough one written on a napkin) can help you to make the most of your travels wherever they may be.

Tips for Better Composition in Landscape Photography

Good composition is paramount when it comes to landscape photography. Ansel Adams said, "There's nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept." You don't need the fanciest gear or the snazziest Photoshop skills to pull off a great image, but you do need a strong composition. Photographers Mads Peter Iversen and Serge Ramelli have both recently released videos with great composition tips. Check them out to start taking better landscape images immediately.